Honestly Emma

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Gratitude - How to create happiness everyday

Want to know how to drive a bit more happiness into your life? Here's how:

Expressing gratitude is the fastest way to experience happiness and pure bliss in your life.

I know it works, because I've managed to stop hating on life and have created WAY more happiness in my everyday. I started this about 3 years ago, at a time when my husband and I were going through a rough patch. Our second baby was only a few months old, and we were struggling (again!) with the adjustment of having a new baby in our home. All we seemed to do was constantly fight and pick at each other. I have to say, I wasn’t feeling a whole lot of love for him at the time. But I had read about the benefit of keeping a gratitude jar, so I decided to give it a go and see what affect it had on my life.

At first, I found it really hard to think of 3 things that I was grateful for, and I often repeated the same three things over and over. But what I started to do was write down that I was grateful for my beautiful husband who I loved so much. At the time I wasn’t, and I didn’t, but I stuck at it, and continued to write this every morning. What was amazing was after a couple of weeks, I really did start to feel grateful for my wonderful husband and I really did start to love him very much. And in return, it was abundantly clear that he loved me too. All of a sudden our relationship improved because I was feeling the love and giving love, and I was getting it back as well.

Before I started my Gratitude Jar, my daily mantra was “He is such a a**hole, I am so mad at him. If only he would do more and understand how hard this is for me”. I had a victim mentality and I was waiting for HIM to change. But by doing the simple task of writing daily how much I loved him, suddenly it was ME who changed, and our relationship mended itself.

Mahatma Gandhi said “ As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world. … A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do”.

Daily gratitude helps us take control of our own happiness. Rather than waiting for something or someone externally to change or to make us happy, we can create our own happiness in under 1 minute everyday.

It’s too easy to get caught up in a bad day and focus on the terrible things that happened. The boss being an ass, the kids fighting, the husband being inconsiderate, the driver cutting you off on the way home, the storm that came through and ruined your outdoor party. But by creating a daily gratitude ritual and writing down three things that you are grateful for, suddenly you shine the light on the things that you love in your life, instead of giving air time to the things that are ‘bad’.

Ready to amp up your happiness dial? Here’s what to do:

  • Create a Gratitude Jar or Gratitude journal

  • Everyday write down 3 things that you are grateful for

  • Mix it up and try to think of different things each day

  • If there is one thing that you want to think more positively about (i.e. your relationship) show daily gratitude to this.

  • Make it a daily habit for at least 2-3 weeks and then.....

  • Watch your happiness explode!

Give it a go and see if this little life hack does it’s thing for you. I’m sure it will.

Honestly,